It’s always fascinating when someone uncovers a long-lost prototype or port of a popular game to an older platform. As spotted by Time Extension this morning, the archivists over at “Games That Weren’t” recently discovered the lost prototype of Peter Molyneux’s Populous for the NES. One of the most popular games of its era, it never received a port to the NES, but I guess one was in the works before getting cancelled.
Work continues at Games That Weren’t, and we have another huge discovery! The long-lost god sim Populous for the #NES has been recovered! A full conversion lost for 33 years – now you can finally play it today! 🌍🎮
www.gamesthatwerent.com/2025/03/popu…
— Games That Weren’t (@gamesthatwerent.com) March 24, 2025 at 4:00 AM
Games That Weren’t founder Frank Gasking explained that he came across the backup earlier this year after being tasked with recovering data from development disks by Enigma Variations CEO Mark Greenshields and producer Darren Melbourne. It’s not clear if the prototype was segmented across various disks or not, but Gasking was able to get it working and you can even play it using the NES emulators Nestopia or MESEN.
According to Gasking, the prototype was in development around 1992 and came about when Enigma Variations was hired to port the system. Publisher Imagineer had pulled the plug at some point, however, as it believed the NES was past its prime. As Gasking explained:
“Mark Greenshields tells us that the client just decided not to proceed with publishing the title. Darren Melbourne (who was a producer for the game), informs us that Imagineer decided that the NES was probably past its prime and they wouldn’t achieve the necessary sales. Darren was pretty upset because they had put a lot of time and effort into creating the game.”
Games That Weren’t has uploaded a roughly nine-minute video of the port to its YouTube channel. Check it out below!
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
